I would like to offer to Spy readers my February 25, 2025 testimony to Kent County Commissioners Regarding SB 0931 and HB 1036 for your consideration.
As we approach the long hot days of summer, Maryland residents and businesses are increasingly expressing grave concerns about the escalating cost of their electric service; the ability of MD power companies including Delmarva Power, Pepco Holdings, BGE, and other in-state electric service providers to satisfy growing electric power demand; and the distinct possibility of electric black outs during peak demand periods. They are demanding that power companies and state and local governments provide solutions to our existing electric grid’s questionable ability to deliver reliable electric service now and in the future. These legitimate concerns – that are shared by a majority of state residents including our own Eastern Shore delegation to the state legislature –are the impetus for several bills currently under consideration by the state legislature including Senate Bill 0931 and its companion House Bill1036. If enacted, these bills will facilitate urgently needed improvement and expansion of the state’s electric service generation and delivery infrastructure and capability, As Chris Adams, the Chair of the Eastern Shore Delegation asserted in a February 7 meeting with power company representatives, “Once you get past the budget, the number one issue we’re going to have to deal with in session is electricity. We can’t be silent on the matter of energy generation.”
What most people – including those who oppose passage of this legislation – don’t realize is that most Maryland electric utilities do not produce most of the electric power they deliver. Instead, the electric service they deliver to Maryland customers relies almost entirely on their acquisition of power generated out-of-state from wholesale or market capacity markets at a substantially marked up and highly variable cost to our residents. In 2023, virtually 100% of Maryland households relied on electric power generated by out of state electric power producers. By June of this year, MD’s existing power generation capability will be further reduced as a result of thee shutdown of the Herbert E. Wagner, Bramble Shores and Vienna fossil fuel powered electric generation plants, leaving the State’s electric generation capability dangerously under-resourced. It’s no wonder that most Marylanders in the know call this situation a crisis.
The only way to control escalating energy costs and achieve long term energy self-sufficiency is to build broad-based – preferably renewable energy fueled – in-state electric generation capability. So, let’s examine what SB0931 and HB1036 (co-sponsored by Eastern Shore Delegates Wilson and Crosby representing rural Charles and St. Mary’s counties) would actually do.
Both bills mirror each other. Briefly, they would expedite the process currently employed by the Public Service Commission to authorize siting of proposed electric generation stations and storage devices, restrict local government’s authority to adopt laws or regulations denying site development plans, and require local governments to expedite review and approval of certain site development plans under certain circumstances. Local governments would continue to exercise permitting authority for PSA approved facilities and would be compensated by fees payable annually by the facilities owners. The bills also establish new baseline construction requirements for solar energy generating stations and energy storage devices that address common community concerns about buffering and landscaping these facilities; eliminating the current need for local governments to reinvent the wheel on such requirements in typically long, drawn out individual project review and hearing processes.
Contrary to the opposition’s highly exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims that passage of these bills will “ fail rural communities by exposing them to wholesale degradation of rural landscapes, threaten the future of farming, undermine local financial autonomy, force counties to do more with less, increase the burden of unfunded mandates, etc, etc”, passage of these bills will enable the State and its counties to expedite realization of essential energy self-sufficiency that will benefit Maryland residents and businesses by lowering their energy costs, vastly improving service reliability, and establishing reasonable esthetic standards for new electric generation sites.
With respect to claims that passage of these bills will result in wholesale loss of valuable farmland, the fact is that before agricultural land can be converted to house an electric power generation facility, the farmer/owner of the land has to first decide to sell or lease the property for that purpose. In law, that decision making authority is a foundational right of property ownership. Neither of the two bills in question authorize state takeover of farmland by eminent domain.
In Kent County about 85% of our acreage is zoned Agricultural. Over 30% of this acreage is already permanently protected from development. Another several thousand acres are designated Agricultural Preservation District lands that typically convert to easement-based permanently protected farmland within a year or two of designation. Further auguring against development, all land in agricultural use in MD enjoys a flat $500/acre Preferential Property Tax Assessment valuation and corresponding vastly reduced property tax rate that effectively dissuades most owners of farmland from selling or leasing their land for alternative use. Given these circumstances, it’s no wonder that Kent County has one of the lowest farm conversion rates in the State. All of these factors indicate that the probability of wholesale conversion of in-county agricultural property to house energy generation/storage facilities is slim to none.
This is a question of appropriately balancing the interests and concerns of all in-state residents. In view of the fact-based considerations outlined above, county residents who wish to be able to count on reliable electric service delivery now and in the future; particularly those who are unable to install independent solar or wind powered electric service at their homes, farms or businesses, are urged to contact their State Senators and Delegates and advocate prompt passage and enactment of SB0931 and HB1036.
Paula B. Reeder
Chestertown
Jay Falstad says
I don’t believe Ms. Reeder fully appreciates how completely ruinous HB-1036 and SB-0931 will be to a rural County like Kent County or any rural County on the Eastern Shore. To start, no eastern shore Delegate has co-sponsored or supported HB-1036 or SB-0931 and Wilson and Crosby do not reside here. This is a classic case of western shore/urban legislators exercising the big foot of Annapolis in stomping on the rural communities of the Eastern Shore.
For those who don’t know, HB-1036 and SB-0931 represent the greatest threat to Maryland’s rural communities and agro-economy in the State’s history. It’s not an overstatement to say that. Both bills expand the preemption powers of the Public Service Commission that were passed last year, potentially preventing a County from ALL local zoning and taxing authority concerning solar or battery storage projects. The tax dimension alone could cost a County millions in lost revenue. These preemption powers also override small municipalities too, meaning a large battery storage unit could be sited in Galena or Kennedyville or Worton and there’d be little a local community could do about it. Under 1036 and 931, farms, field and forest are all fair game so long as there’s a willing landowner ready to sign their lands over to a solar or battery storage company. And the Kent County Commissioners would pretty much be prevented from interfering to stop it. This is why Eastern Shore Counties and the Maryland Association of Counties (MACo), the Maryland Farm Bureau, the Maryland Grain Producers Association, the Delmarva Chicken Association, among numerous other organizations from across the State are all opposed to 1036 and 931.
Put in context, the State is forcing a revision of land use policy that has historically been determined at the local level through local Comprehensive Planning. Worse, under 1036 and 931, a non agricultural enterprise is being allowed – even encouraged – on agricultural land, potentially displacing thousands of productive agricultural acres in the process. In a rural County where agriculture carries the day, that threat should mean something! The economic affect could mean of tens of millions of pounds of grain taken out of the system per year.
As for electric rates, local electric rates are high due to previous decisions made by legislature. Now, in their shortsighted attempt to solve one problem, they’re on the verge of creating an even bigger one by allowing private, unregulated land speculators to masquerade as a public utilities. That would be a mistake that Marylanders should not accept. Other States like New York are already seeing the shortcomings of following the path that Maryland now finds itself on.
Finally, the coming threat is hardly a “slim to none” scenario. The rural communities of Southern New Jersey had the same initial reaction as Ms. Reeder. Sadly, the lands along the Rt. 40 Corridor in that State have been taken over by giant monoliths (battery storage and data centers) in what was once productive agricultural land and some of the most beautiful open space in the mid-Atlantic. Many residents in those jurisdictions regret not getting engaged sooner. The threat is real and if you care about the rural character of the Eastern Shore, you’ll get active and oppose HB-1036 and SB-0931.